How to: increase SMS conversion with emoji

Jan 30, 2018 • 2 minutes read

There are countless ways to write a persuasive (marketing) message in 160 characters. The most challenging part writing with such a limited amount of characters, is conveying the right emotion. Emoji are here to help prevent miscommunication. With our latest update, using emoji is now easier than ever before.

As you probably recognise from any type of non-face-to-face communication, humour, sarcasm and emotions are easily misinterpreted. That is no less true for marketing messages. Therefore, mobile messaging has been using emoji for a long time now. The first emoji are born in 1998, when Shigetaka Kurita created the first 180 emoticons.

Emoji to improve mobile communication

Now that mobile messaging has become such a vital part of our day to day communication (both between consumers but between consumers and companies as well), the emoji count has grown drastically. The countless types of the (originally) yellow-faced characters, can help you say what you mean.

Ever since the first appearance of the emoji, this mini image has been the topic of many studies. Adding emoji to instant messaging, SMS and email has proven to have a positive effect on comprehension, persuasion and attractiveness of your message. Also, interaction and conversion of messages including emoji that represent positive feelings, is said to be higher than those without emoji. Because adding something simple like an emoji or two to your SMS can improve all these results, we’ve now made it easier for you to add these to your messaging using our Send Messages App.

Know which emoji to use in SMS campaigns

In spite of the obvious benefits of emoji in mobile communication, it is important to note that our well-known emoji have different, cultural meanings all over the world. This is best compared with the difference in hand signs, language expert Lieke Verheijen explains. Cultural differences in these tiny signs, as well as emoji, may easily have a totally different meaning in another part of the world.

Source: UNICODE/NOS

As you would probably interpret these images as positive and friendly, consumers from respectively Turkey, Italy, Bangladesh and Italy would be highly offended if they were to receive these emoji from you.

Benefit from emoji worldwide

Cultural differences in emoji interpretation mean that, when you’re using mobile communication to reach and interact with people in other countries, you should have a look at what emoji are most common there. These meanings are easily found through a quick Google search. That means there is no need to hesitate using emoji. Because with a super quick query, you’ll know exactly which emoji to use. This emoji overview page already gives you quite a good idea of different meanings around the globe.

All emoji you want to use for your international customers can now easily be added to your SMS campaigns using our Send Messages App. Register now and try it out for free with 10 free messages, or contact us to find out more about this and other features of our SMS solutions.

Create a demo account and start testing.

is content marketer and makes sure our readers always have interesting blogs to read about how to engage with customers. During the day, she answers 1K questions in her role as communications advisor. At night she preferably sleeps.